John Lavelle did not die in vain. A few hours before his death, while at Wednesday’s Council candidate Manny Inamorato's Beekman Pub fundraiser, I learned Lavelle donated his organs with one of his kidneys saving the recipient’s life.

Unless prohibited by religious belief or medical condition, it’s a no brainer to donate organs postmortem. The former Staten Island political boss and legislator positively impacted people, even in death. We all can do likewise by joining organ donor lists.

My favorite organ donor story is that of JJ Greenberg, the son of the former US Holocaust Memorial chair. He died after being hit by a car while bicycling in Israel. His organs saved six people including a Palestinian in need of a liver.

Well, I just keep finding more and more evidence that the Democratic Party is the Party of ALL Americans. Honestly, I'm not even looking for this info, I just keep coming across it.

Among religious Christians, there really is a bias towards Republicans, unlike the myths about Jewish voters, young voters and Asian-American voters. But the Republican bias is decreasing. From Street Prophets:

Dramatic shift of evangelical and Catholic votes

Catholic Shift - 16 point swing to Dems nationally since 2004

White Evangelical Shift - 16 point swing to Dems nationally since 2004.

10-point Dem gain among weekly chuchgoers up to near parity D46/R53

The Republicans are losing touch with their base. I am sure they are scratching their heads about why this is happening. Well, I can tell them: it's because the modern Republican Party has become a bunch of corrupt, right wing extremists with no real philosophical connection with real American values. No one likes Bush anymore.

Awhile back I wrote a couple of articles on the Pope's speech that seemed to be insulting to Islam, quoting a Byzantine Emperor's statement that Islam was wrong to use violence in the name of religion. This generated some discussion regarding what the Pope's intent was and whether Muslims should be angry or not. All agreed that the violence that the Pope's statement inspired among some Muslims was uncalled for and, quite honestly, a bit crazy. But I maintain that the Pope should have made it much clearer that he did not agree with the Byzantine Emperor's statement after he had quoted that Emperor.

However, we are finally coming to what we all knew would happen: Muslim newspapers around the world are blaming Jews for the Pope's statement. Yes... even though many Jews around the world condemned the Pope's statement as being anti-Islam and inflamatory, Muslims are blaming it on Jews. Even though my source for the controversy was a conservative Israeli news source that was critical of the Pope, clearly it is all the fault of the Jews.

From the Anti-Defamation League

Arab/Muslim Media Allege Jewish Conspiracy Behind Pope' Comments

Last week I reported an incident where it sounded a lot like the Pope was calling Islam "inhuman and diabolical" and comparing it unfavorably with the more reasoned and peaceful Christianity. My original source was an Israeli news source which interpreted the remarks of the Pope similar to the way many Muslims around the world were interpreting them.

Many wrote to defend the Pope's comments as quoting a Byzantine Emperor's remarks not as his own, as advocating reason, not violence, and not being hostile to Islam. The people who defended the Pope's comments are people I respect and in all honesty I tried seeing it their way. I couldn't. No matter how I read the Pope's comments I couldn't see them as being in any way disagreeing with the Byzantine Emperor's comments. That Emperor's comments were critical of Islam for spreading its faith by the sword and the Pope was arguing that religion should not be spread by the sword but rather by reason. This Jesuit-like argument is fine in itself, but my reading of the Pope's comments still sounded like he was saying Islam is a backwards, evil religion because it inherently spreads its faith by violence while the more enlightened Christianity doesn't. I still feel that the Pope's speech was insulting to Islam.

Is it just me or does the West just not get it when it comes to Islam. I remember thinking Bush was incredibly stupid when he called the fight against al-Qaeda a "crusade," a word BOUND to inflame tensions with Muslims. Now the Pope says something even worse.

I mean, I am Jewish and pro-Israel, but even I am well aware that if you go around saying bad things about Mohammed you are going to piss off a lot of people. I fell pretty solidly on the side of freedom of the press when it came to the Danish cartoons and thought the Muslim reaction was unfounded. But the Pope has just been inexcusably rude to Islam and thinks a half assed apology will suffice.

From Guysen Israël News:

Pope Benedict XVI "sincerely regrets" his comments deemed offensive by Muslims. The Pope is sorry that his speech was misinterpreted and hopes that the "true spirit" of his comments will be understood. The Holy Father had said in his speech, "Show me something new that Mohammed brought and you will find only inhuman and diabolical things, such as his order to spread his faith by the sword." The Vatican press release did not however go as far as to make an apology in the name of the Pope.

Um, so just what WAS the "true spirit" of calling Mohammed's teaching "inhuman and diabolical?"

OK, so everyone and their pet has by now read Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code". Yes, I admit, I have as well. Since the movie is coming out these days, there's a new spike in interest in the DaVinci Code – including in one of the locations of the plot, the Manhattan digs of Opus Dei. Even New York Magazine got in on the act, talking to some of the young, chiseled and avowedly celibate adherents of Opus Dei in their sex-segregated dorm.

“I can deal with telling some girls, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t put myself in that situation,’ says Hoff. He was in Sigma Chi at UCLA and says that in some ways, being a numerary is like never leaving the frat house. “It’s a blast,” says Keefe. Hoff plays guitar, and the guys have sing-alongs (“Hotel California” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” are favorites). “I know it sounds campy, but it’s not,” Keefe insists. They go out for beers sometimes: “I mean, I still have fun,” says Hoff. “You just can’t do everything you want.”

But what about the parts in The Da Vinci Code where the albino villain chants “Pain is good” while wearing a spiked cilice (a wire band worn around the thigh) and lashes himself violently with a rope? For these guys, it’s apparently less hard-core: two hours of barbed-cilice time a day, and the rope used for weekly “discipline” during prayer is really quite dainty. Mostly they engage in “spiritual mortifications” as a reminder of Christ’s suffering.

Dudes. There are Jeff Stryker movies that are less obviously gay. Sing-alongs of "Hotel California"? Sex-segregated dorms where you're surrounded by other sex-starved young men? Weekly beatings with a dainty rope? And you use "campy" in a sentence?

Hello Mary? Can you come out now, please?

I am passing this on from a post on My Left Wing. Sometimes it is hard for those of us who live in NYC to realize how tough it can be for non-Christians in other parts of the nation.

I am reposting the MLW post verbatum, then I will comment.

With permission, I am here (and a lot of other places) attaching a communication from my rabbi about a meeting held with Indiana's Speaker of the House. For anybody who believes this is a nation where people of all religions are to be treated with fairness, equality, and dignity, this should shake you to your very bones.

Please feel free to copy and disseminate widely.

Thank you

For those not familiar with the Indiana prayer issue, here is a Washington Post article. The whole thing blew up when one person offered the House's openening prayer, then led the whole legislative body in a rousing, with standing and clapping, rendition of "Just a Little Talk With Jesus," which many found rather less than non-denominational.

Last Tuesday, the Indianapolis JCRC’s Jewish Lobby Day was held. Around 40 Jews from around the State of Indiana came to Indianapolis to lobby our state senators and representatives on a number of issues.

The day ended with a private meeting with Speaker of the House Bosma meeting our group in the beautiful House chambers. We asked questions about full day kindergarten, about the clinics, and a young member of the delegation asked about providing sexuality education in public schools that is more than abstinence based. He responded to everything we asked. Sometimes we liked what he said and sometimes we didn’t. Speaker Bosma wondered why we hadn’t discussed the controversy surrounding the issue of prayer in House chambers. He told us his version of what happened and what he believes, and a passionate exchange took place. The end of this exchange left us, the Jewish delegation, in shock. Speaker Bosma, defending the prayer issue, asked, “How many Jews are there in Indiana? About 2%? There are at least 80% Christians in Indiana.

We are witnessing a great insult to the name of Muhammed and to the entirety of the religion of Islam. Across the world the name of Muhammed is being degraded and dragged the mud. Muslims around the world need to fight against this degradation of their religion. And it is NOT the Danish who are to blame.

Muslims around the world are responding to an imagined slight with a violent temper tantrum worthy not of adults who are members of one of the world’s great religions, but of two year old children who cry, scream and kick at the slightest provocation.

Let me be clear on two points. First, I am by no means saying that Islam is an immature religion or that all Muslims are immature. Nor am I saying that it is good to for a newspaper to intentionally insult one of the world’s great religions.

What I am saying is that the very stereotype that two of the Danish cartoons were based on are being displayed in no uncertain terms by the rioting Muslims. The image that the rioting Muslims are projecting is exactly the image that they feel insulted by in those two cartoons.

The reality is this: a Danish newspaper printed some cartoons of Muhammed. Most of those cartoons were perfectly respectful and even sympathetic to Islam. Two of those cartoons were offensive in that they were applying negative stereotypes of Muslims to the prophet Muhammed. These cartoons brought up many issues that are important for all nations to face: the fact that Islam is no more or less legitimate a religion than Christianity, Judaism or any other religion; that Western nations have unfair and stupid stereotypes of Muslims; and that modern Islam has, in some ways been hijacked by some of its most extreme factions. All of these issues are important issues and all of them are portrayed in the Danish cartoons.

I applaud the newspapers that have printed these cartoons because we DO need to face these issues and no crying, screaming, kicking mob should intimidate us into ignoring them. Perhaps the two offensive cartoons should have been left out, but the reaction of the rioting Muslims may actually show more than ever the need to confront the more extremist factions of Islam. Perhaps those offensive cartoons struck too close to home.

What we are seeing is the name of Muhammed being used by extremist factions within Islam to inspire a massive, religious temper tantrum over imagined slights. These extremists are telling the world that Islam is so immature that it cannot take criticism. These extremists are telling the world that Islam is unable to face the issues raised by these cartoons. These extremists are telling the world that their faith in the word of Muhammed is so weak that the publication of mere cartoons can threaten that faith. They are telling the world that Islam has the mentality of a two-year-old brat.

I have known many Muslims and count some as friends. I have also met many Muslims in Turkey and Israel. All of these Muslims that I have personally met and known have been kind, mature, thinking individuals. They were not immature. They were not unable to take criticism. They were perfectly able to discuss in a rational manner any controversial issue you can imagine. Their faith was not weak, it was strong enough to shrug off stupid insults and move on with life.

The extremist factions of Islam are lying to us. They are degrading the name of Muhammed and insulting Islam. Most Muslims I have known are nothing like those rioting extremists. And yet, in modern times those extremists who have the mentality of a two-year-old brat and who are now rioting because they can’t handle controversy are a fairly dominant voice in Islam today. Extremists have in many ways taken over the Muslim world and it is up to moderates to stand up to them.

This alone is worrisome: that one of the world’s top religions is dominated by extremists. But then we are also seeing extremists like Pat Robertson are a major voice within Christianity in America. We are seeing extremists like Netanyahu are a major voice within Israel and within American Judaism. We are seeing extremists dominating the debate around the world.

These extremists of ALL religions spend most of their time ranting over imagined slights, crying over criticism and generally throwing never ending temper tantrums. The temper tantrum of a two-year-old child is unpleasant. The temper tantrums of these extremists are leading to tens of thousands of deaths every year. If our faiths are so weak that the teaching of evolution, an established and robust scientific theory, threatens that faith, we need to search within ourselves for our weaknesses, not deny evolution. If our faiths are so weak that the publishing of cartoons about our faith is so traumatic we have to riot, then we need to search within ourselves for our weaknesses, not burn the flags of the nations where newspapers have printed those cartoons. If our faiths are so weak that we are willing to lie to invade other nations and we call that war based on lies a “crusade

The New York Times dissects the newest public utterance from the former Hitler Youth currently ensconced on the throne of Saint Peter.

I find it odd, given his personal history, that this pope would issue his first Encyclica on the dangers of moral relativism, but that's just me.

A note on language: Encyclicas are commonly issued in Latin, and referred to by their title, in this case 'Deus caritas est'. That translates into the hippie-ish 'God is love', but there's a slight twist, because the love signified by 'caritas' is social, not personal, as is the term 'amor'. 'Amor' is what drives you to get on that plane to Vegas and explore the Kama Sutra; 'caritas' is what makes you go to the local blood drive or give time at your local homeless shelter (or Democratic club). The former is about you; the latter is about your community. So it's an interesting choice of words.

JUST before he became pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned that Western culture was sliding toward "a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." In his first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), Pope Benedict XVI does not use the word "relativism," but he does fault modern people for missing the transcendent meaning of love and instead caring for one another just because we feel like it.

Is that relativism, and if so, is it wrong? Some varieties of relativism may be confused, or even pernicious. But others are essential to any serious, well-developed worldview – even the pope's.

Pope Benedict's worry is that individual autonomy has been elevated above moral absolutes. But ethicists have long distinguished between what they call defeasible and indefeasible moral claims. Defeasible claims are rules of thumb that nevertheless can be overruled for countervailing moral reasons.

Surely many moral duties are defeasible, and in that sense relative. We all recognize that although lying is typically wrong, under certain circumstances – to protect someone's life, for example – it is justifiable. Yet the fact that one moral claim can sometimes give way for another does not mean that the first claim is groundless, any more than traffic laws are invalidated because ambulances can run red lights. [...]

The pope has used the term "relativism" to describe not only non-absolute standards, but also uncertain ones. The alternative to certainty, however, is not nihilism but the recognition of fallibility, the idea that even a very reasonable belief is not beyond question. If that's all relativism means, then it is hardly the enemy of truth or morality.

Accepting that we are fallible doesn't keep us from thinking that we're right. It just keeps us from thinking that we couldn't possibly be wrong. And that's a good thing. The ability to revise beliefs in light of new information is part of what makes having a mind worthwhile. It worked for a young German theologian who (according to his biographer, John Allen) in the late 1960's began a transformation from Vatican II reformer to enforcer of the faith. Even the church itself has been known to self-correct every once in a while (see Galileo and Darwin).

What Pope Benedict calls relativism are actually the values of secular liberalism: individual autonomy, equal rights and freedom of conscience. But it is easy to conflate what liberals affirm with the way they affirm it. Liberalism tells us that our way of life is up to us (within limits), not that the truth of liberalism is up to us. It entails that we tolerate even claims that we doubt, not that we doubt even the claims of tolerance. Many liberals themselves are guilty of this confusion, which can manifest as all-values-are-equal relativism (especially common among freshmen in ethics classes, at least until the instructor informs them that because all grades are equally valid, everyone will be receiving a D for the course).

True, secular values can turn a civilization inside out. In post-Christian Europe, entire nations have been plunged into endemic health, skyrocketing education and hopelessly low rates of violent crime. Indeed, it's hard to build a decent society without secular values, and "Deus Caritas Est" acknowledges this: "A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the church," where politics is "the sphere of the autonomous use of reason." The role of the church is to "bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good," not to "impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith."

Perhaps a future encyclical will concentrate on the truly harmful kind of relativism. This is the misguided multiculturalism that keeps Western liberals from criticizing the oppression of women, religious minorities and apostates in Islamic societies for fear of being accused of Islamophobia. In such cases we should not shrink from the ideals of autonomy and equality but affirm them openly for what they are: objectively defensible principles of conscience.

The important contrast is not between absolutism and relativism, as the pontiff would have it, but between secular values and their traditional religious alternatives. He can accuse secularists of believing in the wrong things. But that's not the same as believing in nothing.